08 Tuesday Aug 2023
Posted in Kittee Tuesday, Lovecraftian arts
For Kittee Tuesday, a proof-of-concept comic-book page demo. With AI created images + Photoshop.
Elsewhere, Joshi’s anthology The Weird Cat is now listing on Amazon UK, for release just before Halloween.
06 Sunday Aug 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
PS Publishing special offers…
Robert Silverberg’s collected monster tales, illustrated. April 2023. Discounted to just £8, for “less than perfect” copies.
And a Schweitzer bundle, via a coupon code.
03 Thursday Aug 2023
Posted in AI, Lovecraftian arts
A Lovecraft AI at the Art in Silico Gallery 2023 at the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC), Michigan Tech.
Related: “Sentiment analysis of Lovecraft’s fiction writings”, Heliyon, January 2023.
02 Wednesday Aug 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
The German Lovecraftians seek an editor for their annual bumper double-issue Lovecrafter magazine. Specifically the ‘PLAY’ half of the magazine. The 2023 edition is said to be done and should be appearing soon, so this role will be from September 2023 for the late summer 2024 issue…
The Lovecrafter is looking for a new editor-in-chief for the PLAY section from September. Andre will resign with a heavy heart after the upcoming double-issue, in order to devote himself to other creative projects.
They need a gamer who can write and revise, manage proofreaders and other volunteer assistants, and who has the editorial talent to produce a balanced and well-sequenced magazine to a firm deadline. You won’t also be doing layout and copy-fitting, since Andre stays as “layout artist”. I assume the role is unpaid, and of course your German would need to be impeccable.
Also note that the German Lovecraft Society’s online magazine…
Lovecrafter Online is looking for a new editor with immediate effect.
01 Tuesday Aug 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
I see that the recent ‘Lovecraft in Quebec’ (La Cite Oblique) graphic novel can now be had from The HPLHS Store in U.S. dollars. 168 pages, in French. The HPLHS offers an encouraging description.
30 Sunday Jul 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, REH
Spiral Tower on “The Glut of New Sword and Sorcery”…
[it’s] increasingly feeling like a claustrophobic, crowded field [in novels, but in a good and ‘too much quality to read’ way]. I don’t think the glut of new sword and sorcery literature is a problem. But I do think this acknowledging this new phase in indie S&S might be helpful for writers, readers, and publishers.
Sounds good. I knew the “New Pulp” was a thing, and I’d kind of felt the wider cultural sea-change ‘bubbling under’. But the “New S&S” in novels is… new. I’m spreading the word here. See Spiral Tower’s post for various author names and titles of novels.
So it sounds to me like the new Conan publisher will be bringing their items to market at the right time. There’s a new novel series (though the first book had so-so reviews, I recall) and a new non-Marvel comics series (un-connected to the new novels, according to a recent interview I read). Both are apparently more REH-aligned than the mega-corp Marvel/Disney could have made them.
What’s probably needed then is more outreach, to build young audiences for these “new S&S” novels and anthologies, rather than simply curation and book-reviews for old hands. The old hands probably know enough to detect the good stuff by osmosis, and are canny enough to be able to winnow the good stuff into a pile of the really good stuff. But the process for young people probably goes: hear about the novels -> are there audiobooks -> are there full-cast and music unabridged audiobooks? I’m assuming that the age 13-23 market for reading multiple 600-page manly S&S novels on paper is limited these days, amidst the many time-sucking demands of videogames, anime, manga, YouTube, AI image-making, movies, drugs and booze, sports, part-time jobs, college, online eBay side-hustles and whatever the latest social-media app craze is.
On the other hand, the failing Marvel Comics thinks there’s a market for their new line of “crime novels”… so who knows? Maybe a hybrid highly-illustrated form of novel? But that’s been tried before, with not a great deal of success.
So… yes… a really high-quality crowdfunded audiobooks of the very best of this “New S&S” glut would be my starting suggestion, accompanied by a really good free magazine to curate and signpost the stuff each month. Indeed, one might bundle the magazine back-issues free with each audiobook. Such a thing, modestly priced, would be a big draw and a ‘sub-genre taster’ for many.
Audio would also mean that the old hands could cram in even more reading each month. Just slap on a pair of 300ft RF wireless headphones (not the infernal Bluetooth type), and ‘read’ while doing other things.
I’d also emphasise to young readers (probably male) the courage, pride, honour, what Lovecraft calls the barbarian virtue of “unbrokenness”, etc. Just look at how immensely popular Wilbur Smith’s manly books still are. Of course, a bit of sex never hurt either, something lacking in REH due to the constraints of his time. And perhaps a catchy new youth-friendly marketing formula, alongside the somewhat tired old “S&S”? How about MMM! — manliness, magic and maidens. Sounds like a catchy short title for the free magazine that might curate the “New S&S”.
26 Wednesday Jul 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works
I was pleased to find another new journal of the fantastic, Insolita: Revista Brasileira de Estudos Interdisciplinares do Insolito, da Fantasia e do Imaginario (‘Brazilian Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies of the Unusual, Fantasy and Imaginary’). Which is of course not in English (mostly, there is some English in the latest issue). But there are auto-translators these days.
Five issues, so far, in open-access as nearly all South American journals are. Seems to have a definite tilt toward horror. The new and latest issue is themed “The Philosophy of Horror; the horror of philosophy”, and leads with an article which translates as “Cyclopean Games: the Lovecraftian heritage in games”.
19 Wednesday Jul 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Italy’s Black Widow record label has released a heavy metal tribute album to Lovecraft. Nothing unusual in that, but the booklet that comes with the double-album vinyl is reportedly quite substantial, ‘The Dream and the Nightmare: life and works of H.P. Lovecraft’.
Here’s part of an Italian review, translated from a page that can’t be linked to due to EU cookie-madness…
Life and Works is just spectacular. The illustrations show us the bizarre sculptures by Andrea Bonazzi, dark and particular character, talented sculptor and visionary of the crazy Lovecraftian deities. We also find drawings by Luca “Laca” Montagnani. Also in the booklet there is an ample account of the journal Studi Lovecraftiani curated by Pietro Guarriello, one of the leading Italian experts of H.P. Lovecraft. […] In the limited vinyl edition we also have Paul Roland’s biography of Lovecraft as a free extra.
The double-album’s music is also explicitly about Lovecraft’s specific tales (rather than vaguely Lovecraftian) and the reviewer calls it…
one of the most beautiful musical tributes I’ve ever heard. The contextual booklet and iconography of the work makes it unmissable.
Sounds like Lovecraft collectors — especially those interested in sculpture — might want to have a copy, even if they don’t read Italian.
18 Tuesday Jul 2023
Posted in Lovecraft as character, Lovecraftian arts
The German city of Hamburg appears to be enjoying a “Summer of Lovecraft”. With at least three outdoor theatre productions in the city’s main park. Stagings of “Innsmouth”, “Dagon”, which have seemingly already happened. And now a possibly localised or new “The Horror of Hamburg”. This latter being a promenade “theatrical walk through Hamburg’s city park”, with an appearance by HPL himself…
An eerie theatre walk through undiscovered corners of the park. Actors stand at special places in the park, presenting particularly famous Lovecraft stories as monologues, while the master personally provides clarifications and biographical facts.
10 performances across 22nd, 23rd, 29th and 30th July, free admission.
26 Monday Jun 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Tentaclii doesn’t normally cover the surging horde of Mythos writers and podcasters, apart from noting the very occasional interestingly-themed story anthology. But an exception can be made for the large Innsmouth Literary Festival, right here in the UK. Booking now.
I had to look up “Bedford”, somewhere ‘down south’ perhaps? Yes, turns out it’s in the flatlands between Milton Keynes and Cambridge, and about 40 miles north of central London. Appears to be well-served by trains from the south (Brighton, Gatwick Airport, London).
25 Sunday Jun 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Podcasts etc.
The public domain Short Science Fiction Collection 093, new from Librivox. Includes new free-to-reuse audio readings of the original “The Silver Key” from Lovecraft, and “The Miniature Menace” (1950) by Frank Belknap Long. The latter appearing to be Long trying his hand, for Future magazine, at a two-fisted space thriller with a jut-jawed hero.
Also, in paid media the download for Dark Adventure Radio Theatre’s adaptation of “The Shunned House” is now available. There’s also the final cover-art…
24 Saturday Jun 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
New on Archive.org to borrow, The Weird Tales Story (1977). This is the one with the Alex Nino art, not in other later editions. Some of his art here… well, much as I like his style, you’re not missing much. But the opening interior illustration is sumptuous. Here partly blocked by the dustjacket and marred by the scanning of two pages.
But you get the idea. Definitely a collectable for Nino fans.
A very poor Pinterest pin reveals what’s missing…
Also new on Archive.org, French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction, subtitled ‘a guide to cinema, television, radio, animation, comic books and literature from the middle ages to the present’. A 800-page McFarland tome from the year 2000. Twenty years later I imagine that a lot of this previously very inaccessible stuff is now far more available, and perhaps also has English translations / subtitles.